Prison Tales
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: This is a truly thrilling tale of the Doctor's stay in Stormcage and his subsequent attempt to break out, complicated by the arrival of his wife River and a rather evil blob of slug slime. Unfortunately, the author has spent 8 chapters and over 24 thousand words digging herself into a plot hole so deep she will probably never climb out. Please send help ;)
1. Chapter 1

OK, It has taken me several months to write this fic and I think I am almost finished with it. (That is, assuming no more rabid plot bunnies jump out from nowhere and start attacking, then this could be a very long story indeed. This is the first chapter, and was inspired by a friend's (Firebound) deviation of the Doctor having been tied up by River Song. The story of course goes much further (Not in that way, for those of you with painfully teenage minds.), has an antagonist, and, depending on how far you read into it, a point. It contains some whump, especially towards the end, but whump is not the main focus of the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Doctor Who (except a tee-shirt with "The Angels Have the Phone Box" on it.)

Reviews are love!

The Story:

The passage was cold and damp and very prison-y. That being said, it was all artificial. It had been built to seem unkempt, built to strike hopelessness in the minds of its prisoners. The walls were grey-green metal sheets which curved out of sight, meant to look unending and labyrinthine. But it had all been coldly calculated to play tricks with weaker minds. Stormcage was an inescapable prison. That didn't mean that it didn't gleam at least a little pleasure from the slight squirming of its inhabitants.

The Doctor noticed all this grimly. He looked from side to side, scoping the walls of the passage, the sleeping prisoners in their cells. He counted the lights, fitted at intervals, as he passed them. The number was nearing a hundred. He and his guard could have walked in an endless circle, though he knew that this too was an illusion meant to confuse. Stormcage was built in the shape of a caterpillar's chrysalis, and there were no stairs. The walkways slanted gently upwards, and had he not been a Time Lord, he wouldn't have been able to feel it at all.

He tested his restraints and was rewarded with the cold feeling of the metal as it cut into his wrists. They were not comfortable. His guard shoved him to move faster, her face obscured by a black ski mask. "Do you have to push so hard?" He asked of the woman responsible for the shoving. "I'm very nearly going as fast as I can with these things on; you know as a Time Lord I have a very specific center of gravity that involves occasionally swinging my arms wildly for no apparent reason—"

"We're on camera" She hissed. "At least act like you're a prisoner facing your next hundred, possibly thousand years in this godforsaken place." She paused. A smile cut across the Doctor's face. He recognized that voice, and he was glad as anything it was hers. "Though, knowing you as well as I do, if you were facing your next thousand years here, you'd have already escaped. The handcuffs aren't even deadlocked and I conveniently forgot to check your right pants pocket for the sonic."

"You, me, handcuffs, must it always start this way?" The Doctor complained. They were tight, old fashioned twentieth-century earth-typed ones that River cleverly carried wherever she went. For once they had come in handy for a purpose other than— wait, no, he was still in them. River's glare was obscured by the mask, but the Doctor could feel it burning into the back of his neck.

"That's my line, and I said it differently." She said, and then her voice took on a much sweeter tone. "Besides, even you've agreed that this was the best, if not only option." The Doctor looked at her, his brow furrowed half in confusion, half in distrust.

"I'd hoped that line was still in your future." He said slowly. "And I think I'd have remembered if I'd agreed to letting you put me in jail." He paused. "Do you have to grip my arm so tightly? I think I'm losing circulation in my hand." River rolled her eyes.

"Sorry sweetie, I have to make this look good. And no, you haven't agreed to it _yet_, but I assure you I have the Twelfth Doctor's permission, and it works out well for him."

"You can tell the Twelfth Doctor that anything that works out well for him is probably not going to be doing me any favors. I like this body and I'm planning on keeping it for a very long time and if he has something to say about if then he can tell it to our face and we've stopped walking." He looked over at River and then at the open door in front of them. From his limited vantage point he could only see another hall, but this one was straight and there was a sharp turn at the end, unnerving after all the gently curving ones outside. There were two guards standing at either side of the door. Their faces were not masked and there was a decided lack of familiarity.

"Sweetie, we're here!" River stated loudly, and the Doctor felt that it was mostly for his benefit. She shoved him inside and the guards closed the door behind them but did not follow them in.

River removed the mask and stuffed it in a pocket. They entered a small, bare room no more than five meters by five meters. There was a chair and table facing away from the door, but otherwise no furnishings. "Sit." She commanded. The Doctor was about to protest, but held his tongue and sat awkwardly. "Put your arms behind the chair back." The Doctor glared but did as he was told.

"I'll have you know I'm taking a lot of this on faith. If it were anyone else who had kidnapped me from the surface of a planet in the middle of the night and dragged me to _Stormcage_ of all places I would—"

"Have gone along with anything they'd told you to do until you had enough information to escape. Basically, nothing different." River finished for him. She pulled a length of rope from a backpack and began to loop it around his torso.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Preparing you for interrogation, sweetie. I'm making the ropes loose enough for you to escape but I need you to only use that if it's an emergency. You need to be in here at least two weeks, I'll tell you when it's safe to escape again." She said all of this so matter-of-factly that it was a bit unnerving. The Doctor took a breath, centering himself and trying to make sense of his current situation. It was very confusing and he only remembered part of it. According to River bits of it, particularly the _permission_ bits, were still in his future. For all he had been able to grasp in the long walk between the room he had thawed in (River had used some sort of cryogenics instead of lipsticking him, of that he was at least thankful) he was in Stormcage for some nefarious purpose of River's; though why River would want to return here was beyond him. Also he felt sort of used the way he usually did when River was around.

He'd been enjoying something for once that hadn't involved things getting bad, worse, or otherwise unsafe, and he was beginning to think that humans had a point when it came to those sorts of vacations. But now Rory and Amy were trapped on a planet for however long (The Doctor had a feeling it might be longer than the two weeks River had promised) he was here, and things were getting bad. And not in a good way.

"Did you say interrogation?" He asked calmly, wondering how long his calm would be able to last before the glares he was sending her became something more substantial. He wasn't a violent person by nature but this was testing that philosophy.

"Yes. But don't worry; it's strictly interrogation in this place. Being Shadow-Proclamation run is really ultra-safe and they don't do torture. I was here for several years before the Pandorica incident and they didn't lay a finger on me. Besides, you've lived through at least ten things that would kill your average humanoid. Two weeks in a maximum-security cell isn't going to kill you." River finished tying him to the chair and unclasped the handcuffs. She dangled them over his shoulder. He glared in as annoyed a manner he could manage and she simply smiled.

"It may not kill me, but no one's ever done a study on the effects of boredom on my mind. You could be dooming the Universe with this simple, careless—"

"I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it, sweetie." Now her voice turned more serious. "You have two weeks. Do whatever you like but for God's sake don't try to escape. This whole building is double deadlocked, has three levels of matterlines and a five-point timefield. Plus the location is…unfavorable. You're in the Time Vortex so it's not like you can run away from here on foot. I'll break you out in two weeks, so sit tight, be a good boy and don't get your security upped. I only planned for level five." With that River slinked out of the room.

"Why do I do these things for you, River?" He called after her.

"Spoilers." Came the muffled reply. Then there was silence. The Doctor sat for a couple of seconds, then busied himself testing his restraints. They weren't as loose as he had expected, but seeing as it had been River who had tied them he felt he shouldn't have found that fact surprising. An hour or so of work and they _would_ be loose enough to wriggle out of if necessary, he reasoned. Not comfortably, but he would deal with the rope burns later. At least River had taken the handcuffs off.

The sound of footsteps clacked against the metal floor. The Doctor turned his head around as far as it would go, straining against the ropes to see an albino woman stalk in. She was tall and thin, stark white hair and skin with pinkish-red eyes that could be at the same time kind as well as threatening. Call him pessimistic, but to him it seemed that she was leaning towards the latter. She carried a stack of filescreens in her hand, and the Doctor fought back the urge to beam with pride at the fact that they were all labeled "THE DOCTOR" in all capitals along the sides. A camera, like a small metal eye hovered near her right shoulder. She was the Shadow Architect, and the Doctor had always been a pet project of hers. To have him here, now, and tied up must have been a real treat for her.

She took her time coming to the table; savoring the moment, the Doctor guessed. It must have been a big day for her. She set the files down, splitting the pile into two stacks so as to just see his face over them.

"Doctor." She stated, her eyes piercing him coldly. "I finally have the Doctor." Her eyes flashed again, she chuckled lightly. It seemed odd of her. The Doctor had not put her down as the chuckling type. Maybe it was just on special occasions. "You have no idea of how long it took us to turn Miss. Song."

"Well, don't take it personally, she's like that." The Doctor said conversationally. "You could say she has a way with people." To be honest, though, the simple fact thay they had 'turned' River only told him she had them all in her pocket. Needless to say the Doctor was unsure how to take this revelation.

The Shadow Architect chuckled again. "It was well worth it. Would you like to start chronologically or Alphabetically?"

"Start on what?" The Doctor asked.

"Your charges." She said smugly.

"Then I think I have a distinct preference for alphabetically; by planet of origin please." The Doctor said without skipping a beat. The Shadow Architect's face remained impassive as she ran her finger down one of the stacks, pulling out a file seemingly at random. They were not labeled apart from his name.

"I see the destruction charges on Abloria alone would be enough to fill a long afternoon." She said. The Doctor watched her eyes skim the page in front of her. She looked up after a few seconds.

"I think I'll be able to find the time." The Doctor said grimly.

Six hours later the Shadow Architect closed her latest filescreen and gathered the rest in her arms. He was bored, holy mackerel, (or whatever the appropriate term was these days) he was bored. His head lolled down in show, but the restraints had prevented him from fully losing consciousness. "I will see you tomorrow, Doctor, and I recommend rest, it will not be nearly as fun." He looked up at her, wondering what responding wittily would do to his chances of surviving tomorrow. Today had not only sapped his strength, but he found that he had lowered even his substantially low survival instinct. And he was seriously regretting his decision of flying the Pandorica into the TARDIS. He had ideas for when River returned.

The two guards cuffed him again and frog-marched him up three levels to a medical bay. It was sterile and reminded him sickeningly of a certain zombie attack he had barely managed to weather in a former life. One of the guards, only discernable from the other by slightly longer hair (This observation again was only made by virtue of the fact that he was Time Lord) told him to lie on a table. The Doctor had only paused a moment, opening his mouth to protest when Long Hair drew a weapon and pointed it at his head. "Lie down." He repeated maliciously. The Doctor tried to raise his hands in surrender but they were still cuffed. Short Hair uncuffed him while Long kept him covered with his weapon. The Doctor did as he was told. Short strapped him to the table. This was more than a bit overkill, the Doctor thought. But then, these people were used to dealing with dangerous criminals who had probably killed for far less than he had ever dreamed.

"What are you going to do?" The Doctor asked cautiously. This was neither a comfortable nor a natural position for him. He felt uncomfortably vulnerable. The straps had absolutely no give to them. He fidgeted. There was a long white box attached to the ceiling above him with a groove cut down the center. He recognized it immediately. A laser scanner. Of course! They were scanning his physical basics and DNA into the system. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was the one on the table, he would have marveled at the process.

A red light turned on above him, momentarily blinding as the rest of the lights in the room seemed to dim. This scanner was similar to but not nearly as painful as the one Van Statton had used back on earth. It only elicited the feeling of sunburn on the surface of his skin. Once the flat beam had cleared his feet he looked up. Long still held his weapon trained at his head, but Short was unstrapping him from the table.

"Strip." He said. The Doctor waited a few moments until it became clear that they were not going to let him undress in private. Short pulled a pair of baggy white pajama bottoms out of a cupboard and handed them to the Doctor, who stripped and quickly put them on. His bare top half felt prickly and cold in the artificially lit and air conditioned room. Long and Short lead him to another, smaller room off the first one. This too had a metal table with restraints, though there was no scanner above it.

"Lie face-down on the table; do not look up until told to do so." It sounded like Long was reading off a piece of paper, but the Doctor again complied. He was doing this for River, he hoped she knew, but it was _**not**_ out of his loyalty to her. He just felt that his future escape success lay in compliance and he was doing his best not to talk. Short bound his arms and legs to the table. It was freezing and the Doctor squirmed in discomfort.

A couple of moments later someone else came in the room. Something cold was pressed against his back, just between his shoulder blades. There was a short hissing sound and a burning pain as something roughly the size of a grain of rice was deposited under his skin. The Doctor barely kept from crying out as whatever it was that had been pressed against his back was reloaded and this time positioned between his third and fourth ribs on the right side. He heard the hiss again, and this time another rice-shaped object was pushed deeper inside. He whimpered. He hoped it was over.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Later in a cell he sat awkwardly on the bed. He didn't know exactly when morning came here, there were no windows and they had taken his watch (Along with the Screwdriver he had not even gotten a chance to use) and his clothing. But he felt like he didn't want to sleep. He didn't usually sleep, as a general rule, unless he was particularly tired or injured. His back still hurt when he moved from what had been injected into it (from what he could tell one was a positional sensor and the other probably served some sort of medical purpose). His time sense said he had been in the cell for three hours, but how long they were giving him to rest was debatable. River hadn't made contact.

He paced a couple times across the cell and debated putting himself into a healing coma. It would stop the pain, of course, but he didn't think he would be able to sustain it with such minor injuries. It would only provide a couple of minutes' relief at most from the boredom. He wasn't used to sitting still. He wasn't used to even being bored.

He wanted a problem to solve, something to do or save or experience. He had found to his horror that he couldn't even connect with the TARDIS. She was parked on Paiala with Rory and Amy. He was in the Time Vortex without her. It felt empty and wrong to be without even sharing their psychic connection. He needed someone to talk to. He could almost feel himself starting to go insane.

Then he realized that only three hours and some odd minutes had gone by. He sighed quietly. He would actually have to try sleeping to keep sane. He hadn't done it in a while, but it was something that he knew he was capable of.

The dream state came in flashes, almost as if he couldn't find a dream to hold onto. He couldn't control them and they came randomly out of the darkness in which he found the self of his mind. He would dream about something, an old friend maybe, or other planets he had been to, but they whisked themselves away in seconds leaving him feeling cold and bored again.

He woke some time later when a guard's key card clicked in the lock, having found his rest less than substantial. It was Short again, come to drag him to another exciting day of "And what'd you do on _this_ planet?" hosted by the Shadow Architect. He changed into an ill-fitting prisoner uniform he found on an otherwise bare shelf above his bed. He hadn't earned rights to anything else yet and he had a feeling, being brilliant and all, that he never would.

The small holes in his back and side had healed while he'd slept, but it was still uncomfortable for a Time Lord to willingly have foreign and inorganic objects in his body. The one between his ribs had attached itself firmly into the bone and the Doctor could feel it there, sending out tiny ionic signals through him. He shivered, wondering if that was what had made it so difficult to dream.

The room was the same as the day before, though the greenish metal of the walls seemed even less friendly if that were possible. The Doctor sat in the chair with his arms behind his back. He waited calmly for the albino woman and her stack of filescreens.

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	2. Chapter 2

Ok, this chapter is a little shorter, but better stuff is coming, I promise!

And so his life began to go. Apart from three meals a day (More than was strictly necessary for physical sustenance in a Time Lord but lacking enough basic flavors that it didn't fulfill any normal creature's emotional sustenance needs) the days were only punctuated by sudden pangs as the Shadow Architect poked at a buried chapter or two that were still raw memories to him. Being 907 had its advantages; but with his track record, stuck in a room with a woman whose sole purpose was to bring them up, the bad parts slowly began to outweigh the benefits.

By the fourth day (After a particularly nasty description of Gallifrey, Skaros I, II, and III, and at least eight other planets he had killed or seriously maimed) The Doctor was bordering on apathy. A few more days and he would be emotionally dead. At the end of the two weeks River had promised, he didn't know if he would still be breathing.

He lay down on his bunk more exhausted than he had ever felt even after the most trying days of regeneration. His mind was blank and he refused to open it to the chaotic dream world he could barely exist in when he slept now. He couldn't remember, nor could he see into Eternal History, a symptom that terrified him more than he cared to admit. His mind was shutting down, and he felt powerless to stop it. He had days, and he needed help.

Then there was the most splitting, turbulent pain the Doctor had ever endured. A bolt of raw energy so blinding, so powerful that he couldn't block it from his being. it coursed from the top of his skull down his body, building in his feet and the tips of his fingers. It pulsated for seconds that felt like hours. The Doctor knew that he must be screaming, writhing on the cold floor of his cell but he couldn't feel it, could feel nothing except the energy. then it all went silent, black so suddenly that had he not been very sure of his consciousness he would have thought he had fainted. The energy had discharged from his body.

He felt weak and tired but surprisingly alert again. Even more so perhaps than he had before; no, amazingly, brilliantly more so than he had felt since _coming_ to Stormcage. the haze that had been his emotional mind during the past few days had gone with the pain. He was alive again, and that registered with his mind. his hands shook as he used the bunk to pull himself into a sitting position. The world spun but he didn't care- in a good way this time.

But what had it been? That physical amount of energy to cause such pain should have killed him but it hadn't; it had, as far as he could tell, even _saved_ him. He would have liked to think it was his own doing, that his mind had reset itself after not being able to withstand the several days' torment of what seemed like eternal boredom and emotional agony. But that was impossible. The Time Lords had (being an incredibly boring race of people to begin with) bred that sort of biological failsafe out millennia ago. Come to think of it, that had always bugged the Doctor about his people. Take something that could possibly be used to benefit him and they had decided that it was an unnecessary waste of evolution. But they had been who they had been and he couldn't exactly change that now.

He drummed his fingers against the frame of his bed. Then he stopped himself with a shiver as he realized the drumming had taken on the beat of his hearts. He fidgeted, he paced. He counted to infinity. He started tapping again. He stopped tapping again and sat uneasily on his hands. Then he got bored with sitting and cupped water into his hands from the sink and drank it, then took another handful and splashed it on his face. He'd just been given what seemed like a new lease and he was not going to use it to go mad.

_WELCOME_. The Doctor stopped mid-splash. The water ended up on his face anyway but he didn't wipe it away. The word hung in his mind like someone had whispered it in a silent room. Welcome. He wasn't going mad, hadn't he already said? He picked up a towel (He had been surprised to find that they _had_ in fact given him this, being brilliant and all) and wiped the drying water off his face with it carefully, pondering the word out of sheer needing-something-to-do.

_Do not be afraid_. Now that was something he was sure he had not imagined. It was also something he was sure he had not heard.

_We are sorry for the inconvenience, the pain was necessary to clear your mind. It is a sad honor, Doctor, to have you here among us. _It was psychic. A psychic link to someone, or maybe more than one someone, in Stormcage. He was isolated, he needed this.

_Who are you? _The Doctor asked blindly. He had no idea of which direction the thoughts had come, only that they had. It was an unusual link, far too wide and far too strong. It was difficult to filter for direction.

_Prisoners, not unlike yourself Doctor, who possess the gifts of the psychic mind. We have heard rumors of your doings, and you are admired among us. I personally am greatly troubled by the fact that you are here. It means that there is a greater problem than even we feared, that you are getting involved. That you would put yourself in Stormcage to end the trouble. It means that many will die. It means that you will die._

_Who will die?_

_Many, Doctor. Did you not know this? Our Song is returning, yours too. But you must not try to stop the plan, you must not stop the Song._

_What is the Song?_

_She was one among us before her escape, now she will return to bring an end to Stormcage._ It was a different voice this time, female, cold.

_I think she has already returned. _The Doctor thought urgently, thinking of River. _What is it she plans to do?_

_Stormcage is not a safe place. It only houses the worst of the prisoners, those who cannot be rehabilitated or those who cannot be killed. But still there are those who come here unjustly. You, I think, are one of them according to the Song. They go mad within days if they do not find us. Some of us too are guilty of terrible things. But not everyone here is evil. Surely you do not believe yourself to be, as I do not. _

Evil? He had to think about that. Had he been asked only days ago he would have denied it, but the Shadow Architect had brought up some troubling chapters of his life. He had done evil things, surely, and at some times they had outweighed the good things. But that being said, he felt guilty for every one of them, even the ones he couldn't help. So what _was_ the definition of evil?

_Doctor?_ He suddenly realized that he had put an unnerving amount of thought into the last statement.

_What is it the Song plans to do?_ The Doctor asked urgently, using the name River had clearly given herself during her stay so as not to break anyone's cover. He listened with rapt attention to the next words, hoping they would not be what he was thinking.

_The Song is a noble being, Doctor; you should know this now, before it happens, before your death. Do not blame her for what she is about to do. We have agreed, it is for the best. We are willing. _

_Willing what?_ He asked, this time trying to put some of the urgency into the thoughts he had until this point screened emotion from. He had an idea; it wasn't a very pleasant one.

_We have said that Stormcage is not a safe place, and those of us who can have agreed that it is in the best interest of the Universe to put an end to its existence. She will destroy The Stormcage Containment Facility in approximately ten days, taking the lives of everyone within. You cannot stop her, Doctor, and she wishes that you would not try. _There was a stunned silence as the Doctor processed this development. How could he ever have agreed to this? Especially if he had already seen it happen. That sounded like something evil. He didn't want to be evil, and he didn't want to follow River's, or even his own, evil instructions.

"That's a horrible idea!" The Doctor said aloud, feeling the anger wash up inside him. How could River do such a thing? To kill so many, even if they had agreed that it was for the best. _She has no right to do this, I will stop her, you can count on it._ The Doctor thought in earnest to everyone who could be listening. _You will not die._

_We do not wish to. However, for those inmates who have not been able to connect with us psychically, they are not living a life worth continuation. _It was the original thought-voice again, in an annoyingly patronizing way, as if he were some teacher to the Doctor's young student. _They are not able to think, and not able to truly live beyond basic subsistence. The effects of Stormcage are irreversible, those affected will be like that the rest of their lives. It is better to shorten an unlivable life. You should know, for you have taught the Song this._ The Doctor stopped in sudden terror. River had told them about Gallifrey. _You fought in the Time war, Doctor, and you killed your people rather than letting them become slaves to the Dalek Empire. We agree that this is a similar situation. Sometimes death has more honor than a wasted or foul life. _The Doctor felt physically sick. She had not only told them of his sacrificing of Gallifrey, but had used it to convince them that it was noble to sacrifice themselves in her own twisted plan.

_That was something I had to do._ He stated calmly, backpedaling and attempting, on instinct, to convince them to reconsider. _This is not, this is suicide. You will die, and this Stormcage will be gone. But there is a whole Universe of terrible prisons out there, and there is nothing stopping them from building another just like it. How do you know that Stormcage 2.0 will be any better than this?_ He was pleading now, if they could see him they would know that there were tears on his face.

_They will not build another, Doctor, the Song's plan is not in vain. This Stormcage was simply a freak of nature. The vortex is what drives people insane and without it this would only be another inescapable prison._ Before the Doctor could offer his rebuttal, they continued. _We know that it would not put an end to problem, but there would be one less terrible place in the Universe. Surely you can understand our opportunity._ The Doctor understood it, alright, and even empathized with them. What must it have been like? To be here day after day? Year after year? Who knew how long some of the older prisoners had existed here, in tortured insanity, until they had begged for release? But even so, what could River possibly be thinking? There were other routes one could take, surely, before they nuked the place! The Doctor shook his head in horror, waiting for them to continue. _We have already attempted all other possibilities, Doctor, there is nothing left for us. Stormcage is for life, and there is rarely a chance to escape. The Song was one of the most ingenious prisoners, and indeed, the only one successful in escape. _It was as if they had read his mind. Which, now he considered it, was a excellent possibility.

He was about to offer another reason why they should live when abruptly, coldly, the connection was severed.

The Doctor was suddenly alone and it was almost oppressively silent after the consumingly powerful psychic plane. He tried to reach out, to find them again, but no matter how far he let his tendrils of thought go he couldn't feel so much as a whisper pulling him back.

But this imposed another level on the Doctor's current predicament. He'd traded ignorance for bad news and was now not only alone and in the figurative dark, but there was now a more definite time limit and a much more definite consequence. River had promised to help _him_ escape, but from what could be heard, River had not made such a promise to the other prisoners. Even if they had agreed to their own death, though, he had never thought anyone should have that right, or indeed that all-consuming burden, of ending such huge quantities of life. Some of the prisoners might well deserve it, according to some people at least, but there were guards and (if the psychic voice was to be trusted) innocents too. How could River be so sure that it was the only option?

He brooded over this. It was almost beyond what he was willing to accept. He couldn't escape for fear River had an ulterior plan, but his very _nature_ rebelled against sitting and doing nothing! He was being told just enough to be infuriated, but not nearly enough to formulate a plan. It was almost as if someone was manipulating him on purpose.

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	3. Chapter 3

In this chapter you get to meet that antagonist I was talking about. My freshman wishes to add a deleted scene in which she tortures him to death (ah, freshies, so evil). See how you feel at the end of this chapter, but, seeing as I'm pretty sure she knows my password, it will end up at the end of this story anyway.

It was almost two hours later by his time sense that the guards -Short and Long- returned to escort him to his daily session with the Shadow Architect. Instead of taking him to the confined room and the never-ending stack of filescreens, however, like they had the past several days, they led him the other direction up levels and levels of the Stormcage. When they stopped the Doctor could only imagine that they were at the very top of the prison, some sort of penthouse. Though for some reason the Doctor didn't think he was being taken to a party. The guards shoved him roughly inside before them, and the Doctor thanked them in quiet sarcasm. Either they heard and didn't respond or they simply were too good at their jobs to hear the words of meaningless prisoners, but it seemed to do little to his status as a prisoner.

It ended up being a strange, cavernous room of the same greenish metal that the interrogation room had been, but, unlike the interrogation room, the walls were not flat with sharp corners. instead they were curved and sloping with what seemed to be natural ribbons of decoration high on the walls which swayed gently in an unfelt breeze.

The Shadow Architect was there, standing atop a floating octagonal podium. To her right and left floated multiple shorter podiums holding all manner of alien species, some humanoid, but some very much not so. The Doctor knew what they were and his stomach turned. They were the testimony. He was in court. the guards led him to a platform from which he could see the entire body of those testifying against him. the platform had a sturdy silver pole behind him and they attached his bound hands to it roughly. He waited quietly for the fun to begin.

It was several seconds before the Shadow Architect spoke. When she did there was no echo, a quality that felt wrong somehow in the largeness of the space. The Doctor shifted uncomfortably; the restraints wouldn't budge.

"Doctor, your charges are as follows." He had been in court before, both on his own home planet and elsewhere when he had unfortunately messed up and got himself caught. They -at least the 'fair' ones anyway- always began the same way. He stood patiently and tried not to listen to her voice as she read the long list of charges they had agreed upon over the past four days. it would only serve to annoy him more, and possibly damage his already fragile sanity.

When finally she finished and the testimonies began the Doctor was willing to accept that they might be the closest things to infinite he had ever actually encountered. The podiums floated forward from the sides of the Shadow Architect to rest just before the Doctor's own small platform. Many of 'Witnesses' as the Shadow Architect called them, the Doctor had never met and those he had met probably had every right to be here. he had caused destruction, of that he would not have denied, but the allegations should have been outweighed by the fact that their planet was still floating in space, and not in nearly as many pieces as it would had he not done whatever he had done or indeed had not shown up at all.

Being after being filed past, each explaining in agonized detail what his transgression had been to their planet. The worst part was that he was forced to listen, because as far as he could tell he had not been assigned a representative and would have to defend himself.

He felt as though he was withstanding it adequately, but as the fiftieth podium came forward the Doctor's face fell. The being sitting upon it was large, slug-shaped and florescent green. He oozed clear slime which had covered the podium he was draped over, some of it had even slid over that and was making its way in tendrils to the floor. But his physical appearance was not what perturbed the Doctor particularly. He had seen just about everything and nothing aesthetic had ever really bugged him to begin with. The slug on the podium looked familiar in an uncomfortably smothering way. The Doctor had known him, and they hadn't been exactly friends.

For the first time that day the Doctor attempted to struggle against the restraints. This was a creature who should never have been reintroduced to society. The Doctor should have made sure of slug laughed inaudibly at the Doctor's predicament but didn't let on that they had met to anyone else.

"The accused will stand still and hear Mr. Jakao's testimony; this will be the accused's final warning." The Shadow Architect intoned from behind the slug. The Doctor didn't listen.

"Your honor, this being is not who he says he is. His name is Lychus; he was a resident of Acramyos III until he-"

"THERE WILL BE SILENCE!" Now her voice reverberated shockingly around the room. "The accused will not speak until their time!"

"Please, you have to listen to me!" the Doctor tried again, but was cut off as an electric shock from the bar behind him forced him to his knees. it was painful and knocked the wind out of him. it would have send him sprawling had he not been still attached to the offending piece of metal.

"I apologize, Mr. Jakao. You may begin." Through tearing eyes the Doctor watched the slug smile evilly and begin a skewed version of the battle which had saved his planet.

"When this man touched down for the first time on Acramyos III, the planet was in a peaceful, advanced state of society. When he left there was nothing left. Whole cities had been razed to the ground. the water was undrinkable, the sky was grey with ash. He decimated our civilization, your honor, he should be punished."

"I think you have forgotten," The Doctor gasped, struggling to his feet again, "That had I not shown up, you and your friends would have stripped the entire crust of your planet, along with its population, off into space to get at the deposits of- AARGH!" The bolt that surged through him this time was stronger and much more violent. It even made him cry out as he was forced to the ground. This time he didn't get up, or maybe couldn't. He felt almost nothing save for the rough, cold floor of the platform beneath his cheek and the odd angle at which his arms were now twisted. More than anything the shock had simply left him numb and all but paralyzed. The punishments for having spoken were cruel and in the Doctor's opinion unfair, but they served their purpose. He would have to find some other way to tell the Shadow Architect about her "Mr. Jakao".

The rest of the testimonies went by fairly uneventfully, and by the time the guards arrived to uncuff him and escort him back to his cell, the Doctor had recovered from his attempts to speak. He went with them quietly, not wanting to incur a similar wrath. It infuriated him that the Shadow Architect had not even listened to his pleas, and with his own testimony not to be presented until the next day, when the rest of the beings testifying against him would already have been released, the Galactic Justice Corps would not be able to capture him. That was supposing, of course, that they took anything he said seriously. And after what he had seen and felt today, that seemed a painfully small chance of actually happening.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Deposited in his room, later, and alone again, the Doctor felt that he should have done something more tactful that shouting at Lychus and the Shadow Architect. But that couldn't exactly be helped now. He had bigger fish to fry as the saying went.

_Yes, I suppose you do, Doctor. _The Doctor instantly shut his mind to the intrusion. It was an involuntary measure almost, something he had trained his brain to do.

_Lychus_. The Doctor responded bitterly, _what are you doing here, Lychus? I told you to leave in peace or I would find you. I let you leave and start over clean, Lychus, not many who have received that leniency and gone against it have lived to brag about it._

_As I remember it Doctor, It was not you who allowed me to leave, it was I who escaped. _That last came with what sounded not unlike a sort of psychic chuckle. It sent a shiver down the Doctor's spine.

_I'm talking about the second time, Lychus, and you could hardly say the first out of your own sheer cleverness. As I remember it I tripped over a brick. _

_Semantics, Doctor, the point is you made a mistake and I capitalized on it as any good businessman would. _

_The way I see it not many calling themselves 'good businessmen' would kill billions of people in the process of strip-mining a planet. _

_I hated that planet, Doctor; it was as much personal act of revenge as it was a profitable business enterprise._

_You always hate them until they're gone. _The Doctor thought without meaning to, it just sort of slipped out.

_Oh, I heard about Gallifrey, you hypocrite. And that's just a small part of the reasoning behind my next big project. I'll give you a hint: It has to do with you. _There was a silence for a few seconds in which the Doctor didn't respond. Lychus continued and the Doctor could sense his growing excitement. _Ever heard of a little planet called Paiala? _The Doctor's blood seemed to freeze. That was the planet Rory and Amy were on! _You see, Doctor, I have been following you for a fair while now. I must congratulate you, of course, there were times when I thought I'd lost you; you are not a very easy man to trace. But as you can imagine the need for revenge overrides petty difficulties. _

_You can't destroy an entire planet just to get to me. I won't let you. _

_Oh! but look where big, tough Last-of-the-Time-Lords is now. Locked in prison. _The inflection on the last sentence was particularly nasty. The Doctor cringed inwardly. _I wouldn't worry about your little Amy and her husband for very long though, you've lost thousands; two more won't kill you. _

_They're as important as anyone, Lychus, and my emotional state has nothing to do with the destruction of another planet. That's just my sheer decency. _

_Oh, the fact that your friends will die is just a small bonus. There is a very rich deposit of a very rare mineral that coincidentally I need large quantities of to survive. It's sort of a win-win-win if you think about it. By the time Song figures it out, it will be too late. _

_You roped River into this?_

_What? You don't think Song is simply blowing this place to smithereens out of the goodness of their heart, do you? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she had already set things in place to destroy Stormcage, but I'm the reason she's chosen this moment. Doctor, I'm the reason she's here now and she is the reason you are behind nanofiber bars. And by extension the reason that no one will be able to stop my plan later. She found out from an unreliable future source that I would be here, and so she needed a way in to set up the explosives that should kill me, that's you. You came here; I came here to testify against you for fun. I decided that the planet your friends are stranded on is perfect mining material, and with no one around to stop me, I will ruin your life for my revenge, prolong my own existence and become filthy rich off the excess. All in the space of a few days. I will be set for life, and no one will ask any questions out of fear that I would do something horrible like that to their planet. A nice little paradox. I couldn't have planed it better. _

_There are four billion beings on that planet who aren't Rory and Amy! Why don't you pick a barren planet, somewhere far from here that wouldn't mind if we ended up destroying it in the process and we can just battle it out? You and I, no one else needs to be involved. If hurting me is what you truly want to do, then do it without other innocent deaths. _

_Doctor, I think you misunderstand. I don't want you just hurt physically; I want you hurt in the worst possible way. I've been following you as I said before and I think that killing innocent people is what gets to you the most. That you just stood back and let them die because there was nothing you could do. It eats you alive when you can't save people, whole planets worth of people, dead because you couldn't simply break out of Stormcage to save th-_

_SHUT UP! _The Doctor cried. _What do you want? I'll help you start over; there must be other ways to get this mineral. You don't have to hurt them!_

_Once again Doctor, you make this about them. It's about me, and you; you preferably in as much pain as I can muster. _

_Nice of you to be so personal. _The Doctor thought sarcastically.

_Well, I should be off. The crust of the planet will fall away into space, your friends will die and you will be here for the rest of your lives. Enjoy it, Doctor, that will be the only way for you to survive. But by the time you realize this it will be too late, I think? _The Doctor reached out, wanting nothing more than this man stopped. He almost didn't care at this point how it happened. It was a simple moment of pain and anger he couldn't control surging through him at the thought that any living being that had not been genetically designed to do so could possibly be so cold and cruel. But before the Doctor could manage to do anything, even psychically, Lychus had pulled away.

The Doctor wasn't sure if he had imagined it or not, but he could almost feel the sound of Lychus's evil cackle hanging in his mind long after the connection was broken. It infuriated him, how little Lychus cared for what he was doing. He was driven only by hate and revenge, underscored slightly by a primitive survival instinct. He didn't even seem to be gaining any pleasure, like it was just some work he had to do, and once it was done and the Doctor was forever locked away in his own torments and the people of Paiala were dead and his friends were gone in the vacuum of space his only reward would be his own satisfaction that he had done his best.

The Doctor glared at the ceiling of his cell for many minutes, counting time carefully and wondering when Lychus's attack was set for. All he knew was that Lychus was still onboard Stormcage, but even that meant nothing. He could have already set the charges on the planet and been capable of triggering them remotely. Or maybe he had an accomplice somewhere in the orbit of Paiala, waiting for some sort of signal. Maybe he wanted the Doctor to know, or even to watch. That seemed like the sort of thing that Lychus would do.

The Doctor heard the sound of footsteps coming up the metal corridor outside his cell. Two heavier people, presumably guards; one lighter, presumably the Shadow Architect herself. They came into view and stood before his cell. He could feel them there, standing quietly but he didn't give them the satisfaction of getting up to say hello, especially not when he thought he knew why they were here.

"Doctor." The Shadow Architect said curtly. Her voice was forcedly polite, almost jeering in the Doctor's mind. Short began to open the Doctor's cell with his keycard.

Without really knowing what he was doing, without sparing a thought for the implications or consequences of his next act, the Doctor leaped up and straight at the guard. The Doctor was stronger and faster than most, if not all humans. He didn't use the strength part often, but now he barreled into Short, who fell, tripping Long and sending the two guards sprawling across the smooth surface of the floor. The Doctor then took off sprinting down the corridor, realizing harshly that he had moments before the other guards would be notified and he would be recaptured, sent back to his cell, and possibly, if Short and Long were anything to go by, shot as well.

The Doctor ran like his life depended on it, thanking every evil thing he'd ever met that he'd had a lot of practice. He knew the guest quarters were below him, as the witnesses had been taken down a separate staircase through the middle of Stormcage, and there was nothing between the court and his cell except other cells and the medical bay. The only question now was how much farther down and how far he could even make it before he was recaptured.

In the end the Doctor did actually make it to the corridor, 9 floors down, where Lychus and several other witnesses were staying. The door was locked, deadlocked even, and the Doctor reached instinctively for the Sonic, forgetting momentarily that it had been taken from him on the first day. The alarms were sounding and the sound of feet pounded the floor. Guards were coming after him from both directions. The Doctor's only chance was to somehow escape through the corridor.

In a last-ditch (and in hindsight probably a fairly stupid) attempt to not get shot, the Doctor elbowed the control panel for the door as hard as he could. The screen dented and some wiring behind it sparked, but the door didn't open. The guards were closer now; he could hear them loudly as they shouted orders to each other and primed weapons. He had seconds. Desperately he hit it again. The screen went completely blank this time and the Doctor was sure he was dead. Well, River _had_ said it worked out well for his Twelfth self.

He was about to turn to face the guards when something strangely lucky happened. There was a click and the door slid open just a few centimeters. The Doctor acted fast, slipping one of his hands in the gap between the door and its frame and pulled. The door came open very slowly. By the time he had opened it enough to allow himself to squeeze through, however, the guards were there with their weapons locked on him and no mercy in their faces.

The Doctor realized he had failed.

The order was given to fire and a beam of blue light seared through the silent air between them, hitting the Doctor squarely in the chest. He was held upright for a few seconds by the door itself, but then he collapsed to the floor, an odd, surprised look on his face.

Oooh, this seems to be a cliffhanger. Did I do that?


	4. Chapter 4

Oooh look, He's still alive! I was kind of worried there for a second...

The stunner had been much more powerful than the shock in the courtroom had been. He had felt it, the first few seconds anyway, as it screamed through his body. He was just suddenly unable to breathe or speak or even cry out. But it hadn't hurt as much as he'd thought, just thrown him against the door and then to the ground, where, even though he struggled against it valiantly, the darkness finally took him.

It felt like hours before he came to again, back in his cell; and still for several moments he couldn't move. His body was numb and heavy, and even though he had clearly been unconscious long enough to heal any damage to them, he still felt like his individual cells were barely even alive. River was not getting out of this without some serious payback.

The bed was the same one he'd attempted to sleep in for the past week, and he wasn't tied down. This was good news. His security hadn't been upped.

There was someone outside his cell. The Doctor didn't turn to face them; he probably couldn't if he'd wanted to. He waited for her to speak first.

"Doctor, we need to talk."

"Are you breaking up with me, Shadow Architect?" The Doctor asked coldly, unable to resist her choice of words.

"No, but you need to explain to me why you did what you did. I have assured the witnesses that they were in no danger last night, but I think that was untrue. Please tell me what you intended to do to Mr. Jakao?" She waited quietly while the Doctor decided her question worth answering. It was not that he had intended any harm to Lychus, just that he needed to have the slug look him in the eye and tell him what was going on. To know what he was doing, and to see the baggage carried when he would destroy Paiala.

"Like I said in the courtroom, he is not Mr. Jakao, as you call him, but actually a being named Lychus. He strip-mines planets to get at ores and minerals beneath their surfaces. The planet he was talking about in the courtroom was one of his first victims. It was his home planet and he hated it. I got there in time to save the planet itself but I missed one of the explosive devices he used to strip off the crust. He is why Acramyos III is currently in a state of ruin, not me. Now he has similar plans for a planet called Paiala out towards the edge of the Watersnake Galaxy. It will happen soon but there is still time for you to help me stop this. My friends are on that planet, Shadow Architect, along with billions of other inhabitants and tourists. Don't make the mistake of not believing me. I know what I'm doing."

"How do you know what this Lychus, if that is his name, is going to do? You didn't know he was even here last week when we started. More importantly, what exactly were you planning on doing to him when you got to his room last night?" The Shadow Architect said.

"When I went to his room last night it was to warn him, like I warn everyone who plans to do something destructive or wrong. It's something the witnesses conveniently forgot to say in their testimonies. I don't try to stop people until they've been given a chance to stop themselves." The Doctor said. And it was as true a thing as he had ever said. The Shadow Architect looked at him incredulously.

"You expect me to believe that?" She asked, and her cold laugh broke through again in the words.

"I don't expect you to believe it, but I expect you to respect it as the possible truth."

"If I am to respect something as the truth, I would at least like to have some proof that I can take to a council." She said. And there the Doctor was at a loss. The guards clearly didn't know that there was a psychic network. They were only humans after all and probably would have assumed that the Vortex, which turned many of the prisoners insane, would also have dampened any ability to connect with each other. But if he told them how he had gotten the information they would find a way to use the network against the prisoners; maybe even prisoners in other Shadow Proclamation prisons around the Universe. "Doctor? Do you have proof or am I wasting my time?" The Doctor opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again. A hundred million people's sanity was not worth his proof of innocence, even if it would make saving Paiala easier.

"I can't give you proof, Shadow Architect, but if you go to the planet, you'll understand. Lock Lychus up for a few days. If he's innocent you can set him free later, no harm done. But you have to believe me. If you don't billions of people will die!"

"You said you have friends on the planet, Doctor, how do I know they are not setting a trap for me and my men?"

"What could trapping you possibly do for me?" The Doctor said, furious. "Just trust me; go down to the planet and deactivate the explosive devices; that's all I ask. You don't even have to let me come with. You don't have to set me free for saving the planet. This doesn't hurt you in the slightest. In fact if you catch Lychus it can only help you." The Doctor pleaded. His strength had returned somewhat and he was able to turn his head to face her, pleading with his eyes as much as anything. "You don't want your name on this, Architect, I'll tell you that."

"Very well." The Shadow Architect said. "I will take this before the council. In as little as a few days we could consider searching the planet." As she began to walk away, the Doctor shouted after her.

"In a few days there may not be anything left of the planet! You don't know what you're doing! You have to go _now_!" He dissolved into mumbling, realizing that there was very little chance that he would be able to convince her.

He stared at the ceiling, still unmoving, though he was fairly sure he could now if he'd wanted to. Several hot tears fell down the sides of his face and into his hair before he mustered the strength to wipe them away.

He could feel something stirring in the Psychic Network, a simultaneous happiness and grief it felt like but he was too ashamed to connect. He couldn't bear to tell anyone that he had failed and that he had not been able to save yet another planet. It was that very thought disheartened him to the point of not grief, but of sheer terror. The idea of taking charge now seemed at least dreadfully irresponsible. How could he, as he promised, save the prisoners from River if he couldn't even save his friends, people he loved and cared about, from certain death? _I told you I could save you. _He said in his mind, though sure no one was listening. _I'm not sure I can now. I'm not sure I can do anything for you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. _

To be honest it felt a little like drowning. He wasn't giving up; he was still fighting against a strong though unseen current. But the water was growing darker and the panic had finally pushed any rational thought out of his mind. He didn't care anymore, well, he did, he _really_ did; but now it was for a different reason. Now he wasn't sure of anything, wasn't in control of anything. The world was slipping through the cracks and he wasn't there to stop it. He had a million plans and couldn't act on any of them.

_Do not worry, Doctor, we do not expect you to do anything for us. You are no longer a part of the Song's plan. She is here, and you will be free. _The Doctor hadn't been expecting a reply, and this reply certainly wasn't one that he had ever _wanted_ to hear. But just as he heard it he felt the first glimmerings of hope. River was here! Here in the prison. By some miracle she must have found out about the trial, that they were after the same man! He sat up, leaning his back against the wall. he still wasn't a hundred percent but this was something that needed to be done.

As if to confirm his hope the Doctor heard the faint sound of alarm bells ringing three or four floors below. Guards ran past him, their feet pounding on the metal floor in a cacophony of charging energy weapons and shouts for backup. Oh yes, River was here.

As soon as the guards had left and the floor was silent, there was the crackling whoosh of River's vortex manipulator. She stood in front of his cell, her smile smug.

"Escaping from this place will never get old." She said matter-of-factly. "It's the guards, I think, they aren't trained very well. Anyway, coming, sweetie?" The Doctor's face hardened.

"On one condition." The Doctor said simply. A look of annoyance briefly crossed River's face.

"What is it?" She asked, typing something into her vortex manipulator. "We really don't have a whole lot of time. It will be only a matter of minutes before the guards realize that I'm not actually down there." She pointed to the floor.

"We save everyone." The Doctor said, if River found it odd that he already knew he plan she didn't say it.

"I suppose you have a plan." River stated, craning to see if guards were after them yet. They weren't but there was still very little time.

"Yes. This place must have a teleport room, right?" He said. River looked at him incredulously but didn't speak. "If you can get me there I'll reconfigure the teleport for everyone at once. we'll find a planet, you can evacuate it, quarantine it and then we can teleport everyone there. Then you can blow this thing out of the vortex and we'll call the Shadow Proclamation and tell them what we've done as we make our escape." The Doctor said.

"It's not that simple, Doctor, there's a man here. He's not a prisoner but-"

"Oh, Lychus? We've met. I've got that covered. He'll go somewhere else on the planet and I think I can manage to encase him in a force field the moment he lands so he can't escape."

"Doctor, he's going after Paiala next."

"Yeah, I know. That's the planet I have in mind." He glared a quick I'm-doing-this-try-to-stop-me look at her. She took a breath and continued slowly and rationally.

"Doctor, reconfiguring the teleport will take hours. Not to mention that teleporting everyone out at once will require you to lower the shields across the whole building. The power requirements will be massive; you would be taking an enormous risk just trying."

"Are you suggesting that you would rather not try?" The Doctor shouted, unable to understand why she would be against it. River went silent.

"No, sweetie, but I am suggesting we get out of here alive." She said as calmly as she could. "The energy requirements would take out life support and you would have to lower shields across the entire building anyway. I don't want you to sacrifice yourself."

"So you would sacrifice thousands of prisoners to save me, is that it?" He asked icily. For the first time River raised her voice.

"These people are already dead! And the ones who aren't have agreed. You yourself agree that a wasted life isn't worth living. These prisoners are here and will never get out. For all intents and purposes these people will do nothing more with their lives!"

"Then neither will I." The Doctor stated. "Just because they aren't living their lives doesn't give anyone the right to end them. What I can do could give them a second chance!"

"We have minutes, Doctor. Stop arguing!" River reminded him urgently.

"Then get me to the teleport room!" The Doctor was suddenly acutely aware that the alarms below had been silenced. Any moment now the guards could be returning. River seemed to notice this too. She pulled the ski mask out of her pocket and put it on. Then she pulled a Keycard out of her other pocket and shoved it in the slot.

"Anything that happens here happens on your head." She whispered to him furiously.

"Good." He whispered back. "I'd rather have tried and failed to save billions of people than sat around and watched as they died screaming." River ignored the comment but pushed him roughly down the corridor towards the teleport room.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDW

River's psychic paper was waved on by a distracted guard as they entered the teleport room. On the whole it was not very impressive. It was small, just larger than the interrogation room that he had been taken to on his first day at Stormcage. The only notable feature was a glowing dias in the center of the floor just large enough for three people, presumably two guards and a prisoner. About five feet away was a hexagonal console which was cut at a slant on one side to reveal several rows of buttons.

An operator stood behind it, a look of curiosity on his face. River flashed the psychic paper and though he raised an eyebrow at what was written on it, said nothing and left quietly to join the guard outside.

As soon as they were alone River took off the mask and stuffed it back in her pocket.

"River, get to Paiala, contact Amy and Rory and have them help handle the evacuation and quarentine of the planet. I'll stay here and try to get the teleport working for the whole complex. It might take a while but I can lock onto your location and go straight there once everyone's out. There's going to be a field just outside the main city where I'll send the prisoners. I'll send Lychus, in a forcefield about three miles west of the city. He's slow so that should give you some buffer time to deactivate his explosive devices. I don't know where they'll be exactly but the planet is powered by geothermal wells which to him would just be pre-dug holes to the mantle of the planet. Find the most unstable wells, they would make the most perfect locations. You have the vortex manipulator, but remember, speed is key. They could start going off the moment Lychus is out of Stormcage. Go, now." The Doctor said, rapidfire. He didn't know how long the guards would buy the psychic paper trick.

"What about the life support?" River asked.

"There should be enough air to last for hours but it's negative kelvins out there." He pointed to the wall. "With the shields gone a human would have about ten minutes before they froze to death. Me, I'll be more like twenty. I should be fine."

"Well, at least take this." River said, handing him a sonic he hadn't seen for several years. His eyes widened in shock at the realization of what it meant in River's hands. "When you gave it to me you said there was a reason I needed to keep it with me. I guess this is what you meant." He didn't imediatly reach for it, just stared at it. It was greenish and thicker than the one he'd had when he was Ten, but the basic design was the same. "What's wrong?" River asked curiously.

"Nothing." The Doctor said. "I'll give it back to you when I get to the planet."

"You don't have to, its yours right? You probably never even built it. Just give it and the paper to me at the Singing Towers and we'll call it even." River started punching coordinates into her vortex manipulator.

"No, you need to keep it." He said, though what the small metal object in River's hands reprisented was killing him inside. He didn't want to touch it, didn't trust himself with it. The object was too necessary, too important to the natural order.

"Why?" River asked playfully.

"Spoilers." He said simply, not making eye contact as he took the small device from her hand.

"See you there."

And then she was gone and he was left alone in the Teleport room. Quickly he pulled the cover off the console. There were no wires, just a series of crystals in punched memory boards. He had little experience with this kind of tech, but it looked easy enough to figure out with the aid of the sonic. He pulled out the first three crystals and scanned them, switched their places and pushed them back into their board. He scanned the whole board again and frowned. If he disabled the entire dais and rerouted the power he might be able to confuse it. It wouldn't know what to transport and so would try to transport every living thing. That could work.

Then he frowned again. Like River said, to give it enough power to transport everyone would be insanely difficult. He could disable the shields first and let the power build for five or six minutes, even that though might not be enough. It might be enough to turn it on, but after a few seconds the requirements would cause it to crash other systems like light and life support.

He pulled out another crystal. It would stop him teleporting so he could monitor the power distribution to make sure the surge didn't drain the building before everyone was out.

With the deed itself taken care of The Doctor turned to his other issue. Lychus. This was a prison-issue teleport making it unhackable and equipped with at least one portable force-field. He punched a few more crystals, hoping he knew what he was doing. A small icon lit up, indicating that he had managed to turn something on. He hoped it was the force field. He then set Lychus's estimated weight, shape and species into the computer for transport. Lychus would go first, along with everyone else that fit that description. He hoped there weren't too many.

A sudden pounding on the door made the Doctor look up in surprise. Someone had figured it out. The Doctor pointed the sonic at the lock, knowing it would buy him only a few more minutes in which to work before the guards worked out how to override the signal.

"Just a minute." He shouted at the frenzied guards in a falsely outraged voice. "I'm almost done."

The Doctor just managed to finalize the transport of Lychus before the door broke in. Four angry guards swarmed around the Doctor and the console. He could tell there were more waiting outside in case he was able by some incredible stroke of luck to get past the ones currently filling the small room. The Doctor raised his hands in surrender but the guards had clearly heard stories about the prisoner they were surrounding. Three of them fired at once. The blue beams sliced through the air as if in slow motion, catching the Doctor in his right heart, his abdomen and his head. He was able to retain consciousness only long enough to press the button launching Lychus and as many of the other guards, prisoners, and witnesses as the power could support to Paiala.

Then with one final effort he fell to the floor, lifeless and alone in the now suddenly silent prison.

Well, I was feeling a bit evil, I guess...


	5. Chapter 5

On the planet Paiala it was night, but Amy Pond wasn't sleeping. It had been too long. The Doctor had left them alone for several days before without telling them, but a week? something was wrong, she could feel it.

Amy stared out the wide window of Rory and her hotel room. Outside the lights of the city still shone brightly and the stars twinkled softly overhead, many of them enhanced to resist the light pollution of the city. Paiala's capital was a proper future city, the way they were supposed have been on earth in the year 2000. It was all chrome and durable glass held together with rivets and solder. The furnishings were comfortable but retro-modern and gaudy, the carpeting a strange, mossy texture. The only light in the room apart from what filtered in from outside came from the illuminated letters of the Police Public Call Box which had been carefully parked in their room.

Many times already she had gotten up and stroked the box, hoping by some way she would communicate the whereabouts of her wayward occupant. But every time, though Amy could feel her purr softly beneath her fingers in a reassuring way, she never disclosed what had happened to him.

"Amy, honey, get some sleep. You know the Doctor, I'm sure he's fine wherever he is. He handles bloody apocalypli like it's his job for crying out loud!" Rory said from their bed. Amy looked over at him and was about to point out that he had never really been all too confident about handling those but stopped herself. She should come to bed, Rory was right. But what if he needed help? She shouldn't just be sitting here waiting for someone to come tell her that the Doctor was dying.

Then suddenly there was a sound like a whoosh adorned with electricity crackling and River flashed into existence next to the TARDIS.

Amy closed her mouth. For River to be here without the Doctor something had to be very wrong. He was hurt, or trapped or fighting some unbeatable enemy that would surely kill him before they could save him. River had to be bringing bad news. Rory sat up in bed, the look on his face one of shock and embarrassment more than fear.

"River, what's going on?" She asked urgently. "Where's the Doctor? We haven't been in contact for nearly a week!"

"Don't worry, Amy, the Doctor is alright." River said, stemming Amy's panicked questioning. Her voice however was still grim. "I don't have time to tell the whole story now but the short version is that if the Doctor succeeds this planet is about to play host to the entire population of Stormcage Prison."

"Why? Is there going to be some sort of catastrophic systems failure and they need to all be evacuated?" Amy asked.

"No, I'm blowing it up; more or less." River said conversationally, checking the screen of her vortex manipulator.

"You couldn't have given us a few days' notice?" Rory asked exasperatedly.

"Something came up, I was planning to warn you." River said. Then tutted. "I was afraid of this." She pointed to the manipulator. "We have less than an hour before the explosives detonate."

"The ones you put in Stormcage? How could you not know-"

"No, the ones set in the geothermal vents of this planet." She looked up to two sets of eyes, one deeply confused, one completely terrified. She rolled her own. "Short version again: There's a guy named Lychus and if we don't stop him the crust of this entire planet goes boom along with anyone still on it. You two are handling the evacuation."

"What? Us? How?" Rory blubbered.

"Here" River handed them a piece of paper with what looked like a telephone number. "The Doctor fixed your phones, right? Call this and tell them the Doctor has declared a state of emergency and if everyone isn't off the planet in an hour they're all dead. Got that?" River stood intensely until they both nodded, overwhelmed. "Good. Rory, put some pants on. I'm going to do my best to disarm the explosives."

"What about the prisoners? Won't they get blown up with the planet?" River shrugged.

"The Doctor has a plan for them. I didn't ask." With that River disappeared again. Amy and Rory stared in shock at the spot where River had disappeared. River reappeared. "Here" She said, handing them each a slim wrist band and setting one on a table near the TARDIS. "These are transportation devices. They don't do time travel and they don't feel nice, but if you need to get somewhere fast these are your best bet. Plus they'll show me your exact positions so if I need to find you I'll be able to. Press the center button and hold it for three seconds picturing where you want to go in your mind. They're psychic, but be specific. They can and will take you anywhere in the universe provided you've seen it, so you have to focus on the exact place you want to go. Good luck." River again disappeared and they stood for a few seconds and she didn't return. Amy pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDW

The first of the geothermal vents was in the middle of Paiala's great ocean but surprisingly not heavily guarded. All it took for River to gain entry was the psychic paper explaining that there had been strange power fluctuations (Something, she suspected that would have been exactly in line with the truth had someone placed explosives in the vents) coming out of this plant.

It was a simple setup, she realized. There were several wide wells that went down to a much hotter part of the planet. Several tubes of water were pumped into each, and then out again, this time well above the boiling point. The steam produced was what powered the turbines and made the power for the city. River climbed onto a metal catwalk that ran along the tops of the vents and leaned over. She pulled her head back quickly; the steam scalded her face.

But there were wires, unnoticeable to those who weren't looking for them but there. She saw them, probably hooked up to a receiver for a detonator. Take out the receiver and the explosives would only be able to be detonated manually. River looked at the wires skeptically. Either Lychus had been very lazy when setting the bombs or she was walking into a trap.

She decided that as long as she was careful the risks would be negligible; she had less than an hour after all.

River climbed down off the catwalk onto the well floor and to the wires. She followed them to a small black box with two antennae on the back. it looked like the receiver, but River was cautious. If it was just a decoy she could be dooming the entire planet.

She pulled out her communicator and scanned it. It was transmitting something, an energy signature that looked like- River reached out to touch the box and was rewarded with the feeling of flesh hitting sidewalk at high speeds. River swore. Force field. Yup.

But it didn't matter. Energy weapons weren't stopped by force fields and she had a disintegrator ray. She aimed the gun like object at the box and fired twice; it disappeared in a cloud of particles and ozone.

The force field disappeared along with it. But in the moment that it blinked out of existence it was visible, and that's when River realized that it had been a trap after all, although not for someone disarming the device. Lychus wanted the Doctor in pain, and he didn't just want anyone to cause it. He wanted River.

What she had seen was that the force field hadn't just covered the transmitter, but the wires too, and if River was right, the explosives as well. with it gone the heat from the well would melt whatever casing they were covered with and blow the plant. There was nothing she could do.

River looked at the wall and saw what she needed. A fire alarm! This was an isolated plant in the middle of the ocean, but there were still people living on it and they would have an escape plan in case of fire or other danger. River pulled it and immediately alarms blared. River disappeared.

In the next one, River didn't bother with the workers. She only needed to check one thing. This was set up the same way and that was very good news. She took an internal picture of the black box with her communicator and saw to her relief that there was no receiving equipment inside. Lychus wouldn't be able to set it off remotely.

River visited the rest just to be sure, but it seemed that they were all the same. Lychus had clearly expected her to set them off. Well, she was smarter than that, but had she not noticed the force field disappearing, or had noticed it too late, there would be nothing to save the planet. Now River only hoped the Doctor would succeed in his plan.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Amy saw River first in the crowded hall and ran to her, Rory in tow. There was a haze of panic over the room, the kind Amy had liked when she had been in grade school and someone pulled the fire alarm; but now it was almost as tense for her as it was for the thousands of milling people in the central court of Paiala's main city. Amy knew that in cities like it across the planet important people had been contacted and a plan to evacuate the planet was being enacted. The plan must have been put in place long ago, presumably by the Doctor himself, but it wasn't exactly like they had run drills for it; there was still a lot of panic and confusion as people were told they needed to prepare to be beamed to arks currently hovering in the upper atmosphere.

"River! What happened? Were you able to disarm whatever it was?" Amy asked urgently. There were thousands of confused people in the room and she had to shout to be heard.

"All but one. The sadistic slug used me; I nearly destroyed the whole planet!" River fumed. "I tried to disarm it but only ended up setting the fuse. I don't know what the environmental impact will be but as far as I can tell the well was fairly isolated. Maybe we'll be lucky and they'll only have a few earthquakes to contend with. Knowing our luck though..." She trailed off into some other language that Rory and Amy couldn't make out but then caught herself. "Anyway, the prisoners from Stormcage should be arriving soon and we should be on the outer edge of the city to meet them, its going to be a madhouse."

"River, they say they'll have everyone off the planet who wants to leave in under a half hour. Is that going to be enough time?" Rory asked, fidgeting with the bracelet of the transport device.

"The crust isn't going to go flying off into the void anytime soon but there is still the chance that the detonators were somehow timed; although I doubt it, timers seem a little archaic and reliable for Lychus. He wanted me to set them off but that doesn't mean he doesn't have some other way to get the job done. In fact it won't be long before he himself is on the planet. We need to get to where the Doctor is sending the prisoners and secure that, then we can worry about Lychus."

"Where is it?" Amy asked.

"There's a open area between this city and the next, about twelve or thirteen miles from here. That's where the Doctor is sending them if he manages to hold off the guards. We should get there and secure it first. I have a portable shield generator. If we set it up backwards it will act as a force field we can use to contain the prisoners while we wait for the Judoon. And we'll want to stay out of their way as well when they come. The Doctor says he'll catch onto our signals and find us as soon as everyone's down. Then we'll have to book it back to the TARDIS and call from there. Any questions?"

"What are Judoon?" Rory asked. River and Amy looked a little incredulous. "Just asking." Rory said sheepishly.

"They're big rhino space police." River said. "They were at the Pandorica. You two have done that by now, right?" Amy nodded.

"Good. Come on." River held out her hands to the two of them but they simply stared at them. "You two have never been here before, I have. Grab on." Rory and Amy did as they were told.

It felt like Amy was being pulled apart at an atomic level and battered by unseen hands. Like a hailstorm of baseballs and pins simultaneously hitting her all over and then, finally, there was quiet. Amy felt herself surge back into physical existence and collapse onto the grassy earth feeling faintly sick. She realized Rory had done nearly the same. He was struggling weakly next to her. River however had managed to stay upright and looked quite normal.

"Sorry, vortex travel does take a bit of getting used to. The feeling will pass." She said rather unsympathetically. Amy struggled to her feet and helped Rory up too. Just like River had promised, they seemed to be in a large clearing of sorts, the outskirts of which were lined with strange, gaudily colored trees. River pulled something out of her backpack and handed one to each Rory and Amy. "Take these and put them on either side of the field, I'll take the other two. Meet me over by the pink tree on the north side of the clearing." Rory and Amy looked over and saw it, it was a faintly shocking hot pink color, but it was most definitely a tree.

It was only minutes after they had returned to River that the prisoners began to appear. At first one by one and then great swathes of beings, filling much of the clearing. Some of them reeled like Amy and Rory had, but most of them seemed quite familiar with the feeling of unexpected vortex travel. Many blinked and shielded their eyes from the unexpected sunlight. After years in a dark, sterile prison, the sudden sunlight must have been blinding.

But they weren't as rowdy as Amy had thought. They hardly seemed to be testing the limits of their freedom at all even though River's shield was invisible and to them it would have looked like a prison break. They just kind of sat in a trancelike state, like they were drugged.

Gradually a few of them came forward cautiously and touched the shield, but not nearly as many as Amy had expected. She was puzzled.

Amy looked questioningly up at River, but River didn't notice: she was too busy typing something onto the screen of her vortex manipulator. "They're all here." She heard River whisper to herself. She didn't seem happy, but nothing she could see was particularly wrong. "But where is..." She trailed off, this time looking up at Amy with sudden fear. "Amy, get out of the way!" River shouted.

Amy looked behind her just in time to see a huge slug, nearly six feet tall and galloping -if galloping was the right word- straight towards her. Slime oozed off its brownish-green back like thick, gooey water in rivulets, leaving a four-foot-wide trail behind. Amy threw herself out of the way just in time, but it seemed that the slug wasn't interested in her in the least. It only had eyes for the woman standing stock-still meters away. And though it seemed to be smiling, it did not look happy to see her. Rory pulled Amy to her feet and away from the creature. She shrugged him off and ran to where it was confronting River savagely, looking very capable of serious harm in a way that was quite unlike most slugs Amy had seen in her life.

"Amy! Stay back!" River shouted as she was knocked to the ground by the front of a slimy pseudopodia. Amy stopped coming forward but was ready to jump on the thing should it make an attempt to further attack River.

"Song! You have ruined my plan, I hope you know. I do terrible things to people who ruin my plans!" Amy was almost puzzled to hear it speak. But, she berated herself, it (_He_ now she supposed) was an alien, and they did all kinds of things that defied logic. Like eat fish fingers and custard in the middle of the night. Or be giant talking slugs.

"For you, I think, I will destroy this planet." He smiled maliciously and a sort of appendage formed itself from the outside of his body. There was something at the end of it, grayish with a red button in the middle. Some sort of control switch? Very cliché if it was. He continued with a sort of sadistic pleasure in his voice that was almost entirely inhuman.

"I press this button and the crust of this planet goes boom. You, your friends and the prisoners go with it."

"What about you?" River asked in as nasty a way as that question had ever been asked.

"I'll be gone. I have one of those cute vortex manipulators too. That's how I got out of that force field the Doctor tried to trap me in." He grinned. "Don't think of using yours." Another appendage shot out and grabbed River by the wrist with her vortex manipulator. River screamed as if in pain. The slug was trying to rip her arm off! Amy surged forward, attempting to climb onto his fat, slimy body and, well, do _something_ at least.

But instead of hitting flesh Amy hit only air.

Amy stumbled forward. At first she was confused. The slug-thing was nowhere near agile enough to have jumped out of her way, and it wasn't a hologram because it had left a slime trail and tried to pull River's arm off. But as she turned to face River she realized what had happened. River's disintegrator gun was still aimed at what used to be the slug's heart. River had shot him.

River looked at the gun as though she herself didn't believe what she had done. Then she went limp and let herself fall the last several inches to the ground.

Amy and Rory ran forward, eyes wide with shock. "River!"

Rory bent over her as Amy wondered if what had been in the slug's slime was toxic. Their worry was unnecessary, however, as a second later River sat up again.

"I'm alright!" She said, seemingly annoyed at them for caring. "But I can tell you who isn't." She continued grimly. "The Doctor hasn't come back yet. Something's wrong." Rory looked at Amy who raised her eyebrows.

"How do you know he isn't just somewhere else on the planet?" Rory asked. "There are a lot of places here we aren't" River pulled out a slime-covered communicator and pointed to the screen.

"His life sign is blue." She explained. "All the life signs on this planet are either red, meaning human, or green, meaning non-human. I programmed Time Lords to show up as blue. He isn't here."

"Then what about Stormcage?" Amy asked. "You said he was there before, why couldn't he still be there?"

"Because to give enough power to the teleports he would have had to siphon nearly all the energy from the shields and life support. The systems in Stormcage weren't designed to handle that kind of power, and the resulting surge would have fried the place. The temperature in the time vortex is absolute zero and there would only be a couple of feet of plasticrete and nanofiber insulation between him and the harshest environment known in this Universe. The temperature would drop drastically. A human might have ten minutes, a Time Lord maybe twenty. I don't think anything would survive past twenty-five even in deep hibernation. It's already been five minutes. If he's still up there it means either the power ran out too soon and he can't get the teleport to work again or something else is stopping him from coming down. We need to go up there and find out what's going on, and we have just under five minutes to do it." River said, and stood up. Strings of Lychus's slime came off her, still sticking to the ground.

"Well you aren't coming." Rory said matter-of-factly. "If it's as cold as you say it is up there and you're soaked, you'll never make it even the five minutes." River looked about to argue.

"Don't." Rory warned; the most macho thing he'd said since he'd begun travelling with Amy and her Doctor. "We don't have a whole lot of time. Get us there and we'll keep you updated as to what's going on." River relented.

"Fine. He'll probably be in the teleport room still if he wants us to find him. I'll send you there." She said, and handed them two flashlights out of her bag. "The power will be gone and it will be the darkest you've ever seen."

It may be a while before the next chapter. I haven't written enough for a whole other one, but I promise you'll have it as soon as I do.


	6. Chapter 6

After the sensation of vortex travel faded there was only a split second of comfort before the cold knocked the wind out of her. It was very dark and multiple times as cold as the dead TARDIS had been as it crashed into the cold star, which at the time had been the coldest she had ever been. Her breath caught in her throat and she could feel not only the inside membranes of her nose freezing but also the saliva in her mouth, throat and even lungs as she breathed it in out of sheer necessity. This time they didn't even have ponchos. Amy and Rory stood up. River had gotten them close at least, they were just outside the open door to the teleport room.

Amy looked in and immediately her heart skipped a beat. He was there, but lying on the floor completely, eerily still. Frost had not formed on his body, but she thought that was probably because it had gotten cold too fast. He couldn't be dead, she reminded herself, but the same overwhelming feeling of dread that set in any time she saw him like this was setting in. It was happening entirely too often.

She felt Rory sprint across the room. He'd seen the Doctor too, was worried like she was that he would kneel by his side to find that there was no pulse, no breath. The Doctor lay motionless at the foot of a kind of console thing. Crystals and bits of tan stuff littered the floor around him; Rory scattered it as he knelt beside The Doctor. Amy wanted to call out for him, or at least ask Rory if he was even alive, but found she already couldn't even talk for the cold. Rory's already numb fingers skated across the Time Lord's chest and head. He couldn't feel a pulse, but then, he couldn't feel his fingers either. It was an agonizing second before he saw more than felt the Doctor's chest rise faintly. He fumbled with the communicator button on his wristband and depressed it.

"River." He said into it, though it came out as no more than a whisper. "We found him. He's breathing but unconscious. We're bringing him back."

"Wait!" River's voice cut through the cold room like broken glass. "Bring him straight to the TARDIS infirmary. I'll meet you there."

Rory motioned to Amy to come closer. He couldn't talk anymore either. They both covered the Doctor's body instinctively as Rory pressed and held the button on his wristband. He mouthed the words "TARDIS infirmary" and the freezing teleport room dissolved.

Amy hadn't been expecting the warmth to be as a shock as the cold had been but it was. It couldn't have been a minute that they had been in Stormcage and yet she had already slipped into mild hypothermia and on top of the shock of vortex travel, which she still wasn't used to, the sudden warmth felt strangling and very painful. She could only imagine what the Doctor would be feeling if he were conscious.

The Doctor was the most important person here though, not her, at the moment. River had already pushed past them and scanned him with her communicator. All three of them held their breath before the single, slow heartbeat beeped its way across the still slimy screen. He was still alive, at least, but that didn't exactly bode well for his condition. Each of a Time Lord's hearts beat nearly 150 times a minute, and his one heart was only at about 40. Rory craned his head around to see the rest of the Doctor's vitals. His temperature was less than thirty degrees Fahrenheit. River immediately took charge.

"Amy, get any blankets you can find. We have to insulate his body; right now the heat in this room could kill him. Rory, help me get him onto the table and then start compression-only CPR. Try to synch the compressions to just after each beat on the communicator on the right side of his chest."

Rory and River lifted the Doctor onto the table and laid him out flat. Rory undid the bowtie and braces, took off the jacket and ripped the buttons out of his shirt so his bare chest and abdomen were visible. The first thing Rory noticed was that there were burn marks on the spot over his right heart and on his belly, like the entry and exit points for large quantities of electricity. He had become very familiar with the fact that the Doctor was not human, but that being the case he didn't quite know how the Doctor would react to electricity.

He looked back up to ask if there was anything else he should know but River had disappeared; he could hear her rummaging in a nearby cabinet. Too stunned to argue or do anything besides what he had been trained to do, Rory began the compressions.

Amy returned with an armful of blankets a couple of moments later and River took them from her. She and Rory wrapped him in them until he resembled a mummy and then Rory started the compressions again immediately. According to the communicator-turned-monitor which had been propped on a nearby table, his right heart hadn't restarted, not that Rory had really expected it to. He didn't know how much damage had been caused, or even what had caused it. He had a feeling that it was something much more alien than simple electrocution.

Rory and River traded off the awkward half-CPR for an hour while the Doctor's temperature climbed into more normal realms. It didn't seem right to perform CPR on a breathing patient, and as he warmed the breaths came more frequently. Rory found himself worrying as he checked and re-checked what he was doing, hoping that the compressions weren't interfering with the Time Lord's other functions. If they were, the Doctor was in more serious trouble than having only one working heart. Rory could feel that he had already broken several of the Doctor's ribs in the past hour, and with the Doctor breathing by himself Rory would be literally pushing the bone fragments into his lungs if he continued for much longer. River's communicator said that his still-working heart was at seventy-five bpm, a dramatic increase from forty and becoming very difficult to keep up with, especially accounting for breaths.

That being said, Rory was woefully out of his depth. He didn't want to make a decision that could potentially harm the Doctor, and yet at the same time he didn't want to wait too long and have the same happen out of negligence.

To his great relief, it was River who placed her hand on his shoulder and told him he could stop.

"His temperature has nearly normalized." she said gravely. "If his heart hasn't restarted on its own by now its probably not going to." The communicator read fifty-nine degrees but at this point Rory was too tired to be surprised by it.

"What are we going to do?" He asked. "Can he survive with only one heart?" River smiled, but Rory couldn't quite make out the expression she was trying to convey, or even if she was trying to convey any expression at all.

"He would be able to survive, but not for more than a day or so outside of a coma. Time Lords evolved with two hearts, and they are _meant_ to have two. The ability to live with one heart is simply a stopgap measure. With everything he's been through recently and the fact that he just barely escaped being frozen to death I think we could even put that figure down to as little as a few hours. CPR could help for a while but as I think you noticed, even that isn't going to be practical."

"Where are you going with this?" Rory said, feeling anger rise. River had basically told him there was no hope.

"We'll have to start it for him." River said.

"Great!" Rory said angrily, "I don't suppose he has a defibrillator or Time Lord Epinephrine just stored away in here. In case you haven't noticed, he doesn't seem to think he will _ever_ need the services of his own medical bay!"

"Calm down, Rory, he'll be okay for a few hours at least. I found this while I was looking through his supplies." River held out what looked like a fist sized mass of black plastic that looked like it had been melted down and then re-shapen by a preschooler.

"What's that?" He asked.

"It's outdated where I come from but as you were talking about using high voltage electricity I think these will certainly be safer." River pressed a discreet button on the side of the lump and several tiny golden orbs diffused out of the plastic and floated in the air around Rory's face. "They're called nanogenes. They restore a living body to maximum capacity. They can heal injuries, illnesses, anything they're programmed for they can do, no issue."

"So why didn't we use them right away?" Rory asked. "Why did we wait if he could have been healed on the spot?"

"There's a problem with these. Its like you said that the Doctor never thinks he will ever need anything? That he will never be injured so badly that he might actually need to use this fine infirmary he's got? Well, these are _human_ nanogenes. They can't do anything for anyone who isn't human. They can be reprogrammed, but to reprogram them it takes a healthy, living Time Lord so that they can use it as a template. As I'm sure he's told you there aren't too many of those anymore." Rory nodded.

"So why bring it out in the first place if you can't do anything with them?" Rory asked, frustrated at River's apparent lack of helpfulness.

"In my communicator is a copy of his complete genetic makeup. If they're smart they'll learn how to use it. I can project his DNA as a hologram of his physical appearance. It's risky, though." River continued, stemming Rory's confusion. "They may take it literally. He told me he had some trouble with nanogenes a while back. They weren't human nanogenes and they wanted to heal humans, unfortunately the first human they came across was dead. Presto night of the living gas mask zombie." Rory though it better not to ask.

"So he could become a hologram?" Rory asked. It still seemed farfetched and ridiculous, but it was far future technology and River looked like she'd had experience.

"There's a far greater chance that the new programming wouldn't take at all and he'd become a human. We could be committing genocide."

"That's very reassuring." Rory commented.

"We don't really have a choice. He's starting to regenerate now." Rory looked in shock at the thin streamers of light that had started through the blankets. Perspiration was forming on the Doctor's face and presumably any available skin. "We can't wait any longer or we could be treated to the Time Lord light show." Rory wondered how River could joke about that sort of thing.

River typed hurriedly into the screen of her communicator. Rory didn't quite understand what she was doing, but as he watched River angled one side of the unit outwards and a three dimensional image of the Doctor waved into existence out of thin air. It seemed to be a recording. River had turned off the sound but it seemed like the Doctor was pointing to some imaginary place behind him and talking about it excitedly.

"What's he doing?" Amy asked quietly, her voice catching in her throat as though she had still not recovered from the extreme cold of Stormcage. Rory jumped, she hadn't spoken in so long he had assumed she had fallen asleep. Nevertheless River answered, a tinge of pride and sadness in her voice.

"This was from when we were at the Waterstone Cathedral on Paraclaim. It was how he wanted to be remembered, he said. He had lost so much mercy by that then, but just that day he didn't want to be the Oncoming Storm or the Destroyer of Worlds. I loved him so much for that. He made this recording of him describing the Cathedral, badly, so I would never forget." Rory could see a tear running down River's face as she remembered. She brushed it off. "I've isolated his image and I'm loading his DNA." She said roughly. The hologram froze with the Doctor waving cheerily off-camera, presumably to River. Then suddenly the image seemed to crawl and fade before returning to its original form. River set the communicator before opening the nanogene container.

Hundreds of tiny golden orbs flooded into the room and engulfed the stationary hologram of the Doctor. They stayed there, suspended over the image, darting energetically around it for several minutes. Rory was captivated by them. They didn't look like any medical equipment he thought of generally, even after being exposed to the wonders of the Universe via the Doctor. They were beautiful and even seemed to be living as they absorbed the information in the hologram.

When five minutes had passed River turned off the hologram. The nanogenes froze for a second and then moved inward to create a much larger, pulsating golden orb. River seemed to be muttering something under her breath, but whether it was meant as a prayer or a threat Rory couldn't tell. He could imagine River threatening the nanogenes, or even the Doctor should he not wake up from this.

River stowed the communicator on her belt, took a steadying breath, and stood behind the nanogenes. Then she raised her hands, seeming to cup the floating ball of light in them. She closed her eyes and mimed pushing them towards the Doctor; only instead of her hands going right through them, the golden specks seemed to know what she was doing and followed her directions.

This time they engulfed the real Doctor. The blankets were thrown off and the Doctor floated several inches above them. Streams of regeneration energy flowed off him, thicker and more substantial than before. The beads of light mingled with the energy, nearly (A/N: and conveniently, seeing as he's naked and this fic is only rated K+) obscuring him entirely.

Rory and Amy watched the whole scene with a mixture and fascination and horror. River watched it stoically, uninterested almost. She knew there was nothing she could do to stop his regeneration if the nanogenes failed to save him, but at the same there had really been no other options. He hadn't been improving on his own and the energy was a dead giveaway that _he'd_ given up. If they decided not to work now there was nothing anyone could do.

It felt like hours they all stood there in the infirmary, waiting. It wasn't. Nanogenes were among the fastest treatment options in the Universe for injuries, and in reality they healed the Doctor completely within minutes. But they all saw it in stages. The regeneration energy dissipated, the burn marks faded from view, presumably the internal injuries were rectified within the next several moments as he floated above the bed, supported by the nanogenes.

The Doctor fell the few inches to the bed, still as limp and lifeless as before. The nanogenes withdrew back into their pulsating spherical cloud and floated above him. River quickly scanned the Doctor.

"He's okay." She said, breathless and almost non-believing as Rory and Amy's faces expressed simultaneous looks of relief. "He will be at least. It could take a few hours, but everything seems to be right physically." Rory might have noted a slight worry in her voice, but he didn't ask. After all they'd been through today, the tone could have been anything.

"What do we do now?" He asked instead. River looked up.

"We wait. Or rather, I wait. You two go rest." She paused. "Now! There is nothing more you can do for him. What he needs now is rest and that's not something you can help him with." She added as they both began to protest. They were exhausted. "Go, I'll tell you if anything changes."

Rory and Amy reluctantly shuffled out of the room together towards their beds.

River sighed as the doors closed automatically behind them. How many times had she sat there while he lay unconscious or dying before her? How many times would she still have to endure it? It wasn't easy for either of them to go through, and somehow she always found herself responsible. When they had had that picnic on Falequine minor she had been the one to point out the spider that had left him in a coma for three days. On Mossrun she'd set the trap he'd gotten caught in. And on that fateful day hundreds of years in his future when they'd met for the first time, well, she would never in a million years forgive herself for what she did to him then.

River ran her fingers through his crest of dark hair. It was wet with perspiration, evidence that the healing process had not been an easy one to go through. More for something to do than out of necessity, she pulled clean towels and blankets from a cupboard and replaced the currently damp ones he was lying on. She slowly dried his hair with another towel.

"Oh, Doctor." She said out of habit. "I envy you, you know that? I really do. Out there, every day and you save people, make a difference. I know what you say to that so I won't even bother with going on about it. Everything is right when you're there, everything you do eventually comes out right and I don't think anyone can be that good forever." She was trying not to let the emotion of the words show through. Not now. But it welled up inside her. Everything that she had felt her entire life was in these words. It wasn't worry or pain or even hope; something else entirely. She couldn't put her finger on it.

"Every day I have to try so hard to be like you. So sharp, so fearless. It's so hard to make it look as easy as you do. The way you whip out those lines; for you it _is_ easy, isn't it? You save the Universe with so little doubt in your mind that when you are at a loss the Universe stops cold and grieves. So much depends on you and yet you resolve everything like you've just stumbled on the answer; the luckiest novice in the tournament instead of the master who plans every move before he begins. Because that's who you are. You convince the Universe that you're invincible. I think you've even convinced yourself a little bit." She was breaking down, her façade melting away in the quiet infirmary. Tears were staring to win the war with her strength. It was only these moments that she realized how mortal he really was. Every day could be his last and yet he looked at them all like his first.

Reverence. That was it. Reverence and envy and worry and hope and wonder and joy. Sadness too sometimes, more these days than ever. All mixed together and poured in for her to feel every time he walked into the room.

The towel was damp now and his hair was nearly dry. She hung it over a chair and sat beside the bed again, pausing several times to straighten the blankets.

"Is that really what you think, River Song?" His voice was quiet, tired. He didn't open his eyes. River didn't even try to hide the smile that broke across her face. "I don't think you quite know the value of things until you see them through to the end. Or the beginning, you should always try to find the beginning at some point or the ending is useless." She wondered for a second if he knew what he was saying, or rather just how important what he was saying was.

"Yes." She said, tears of joy starting up now. She ran her fingers through his hair again and again, overjoyed that nothing appeared too very wrong anymore.

"The screwdriver-." He started weakly, but River cut him off.

"It doesn't matter, Doctor, right now just rest."

"No, s'important. We need to get it back, your life depends…" He faded for a second, struggling to stay conscious. "…Stormcage will rip itself apart; you need to get…Spacesuits are in the closet next to Pond's room…S'on the floor by the console."

"Doctor, please. It's just a screwdriver, you can make another."

"Not that one…" He fell limp again and River looked at him curiously. The Doctor hadn't been delirious, of that she was certain. He might not have been completely there, but he had known what he was saying. Something about the sonic he'd dropped in Stormcage was incredibly important. River took one last look at the battered body of the Time Lord once again lying motionless and made up her mind. She didn't know why, but the event seemed familiar and necessary. She knew the danger. Even one of the TARDIS spacesuits couldn't completely protect her from the temperature difference. And by now the severely undershielded Stormcage would be disintegrating into the vortex. Nothing could save a human in there, not even the TARDIS. She was about to do one of the most dangerous things she had done so far, and that was saying something.

So, thanks everyone who has reviewed so far, and if you're new I would love to hear what you think of the story, how I can improve, etc…There should only be one or two more chapters to write, and once I get those finished you'll have them. Hope you've enjoyed it so far!


	7. Chapter 7

Caution, this chapter has been issued a **MAJOR SPOILER WARNING**. For events from the episode **"A Good Man Goes to War".** If you have not seen this episode, and still don't know **who and what River Song is**, DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER. Go and watch the episode. If you live in America and have not seen it, I can provide you with a good link, just PM me. **_You have been warned_.**

OK, this is only the first half of this chapter. I know that it's short and I know that after all this time you probably wanted more from me. Too bad. I just started my first full-time job on Monday; I'm a Student Nursing Intern at Cleveland Clinic Lakewood. I don't have a whole lot of time to write fanfics, so updates will probably be less frequent, most likely once a week. I thought I should get this chapter out there, because a lot of people want to find out what happens.

To those who noticed the little discrepancy with what clothing he was wearing in Stormcage, just ignore it, I'm not planning on changing it.

DWDWDWDW

River crept quietly into Amy and Rory's room. The TARDIS had let her in, thankfully, with little pleading and fanfare. The room was large, adorned with TARDIS-chic furniture and various personal items of the couple's.

And a bunk bed. River raised her eyebrow but honestly thanked whoever had thought up the sleeping arrangements. It would be easier to wake Rory up without Amy coming too. He was on the bottom bunk and for some reason River didn't find this surprising. She put her hand on his shoulder and he jolted awake.

"Wha-?"

"Shhh, don't wake Amy up, its only me." River said. Rory still looked half asleep.

"Is the Doctor alright?" he whispered suddenly, straightening. River nodded.

"He'll be okay. He woke up, well, barely anyway. He's asked me to do something for him. I'm sorry to ask this, you have had a hard enough day already but could you keep an eye on him?"

"Of course." Rory got out of bed. "What does he need you to do?" River grew suddenly cold.

"That doesn't matter right now." She said. "Just look after him. If he wakes up again tell him that I'm on my way."

Stormcage itself was different than she remembered, almost sad. It was no longer the indestructible fortress she had come to know, but a weak, limp rag buffeted by the storm at the heart of the Time Vortex. Stormcage was falling apart.

River walked quickly, an eerie bluish light was filtering in from the outside and the floor was shaking.

Up ahead she saw where the light was coming from. Patches of bluish light were, for lack of a better term, eating away at metal walls that had once been so impervious. Inside them River caught glimpses of the storm for which the prison was named. That never-ending constant pounding of rain and thunder was now destroying the building it had guarded faithfully for so long.

Stormcage jolted treacherously and River was thrown on her side, face inches from one of the holes. She could feel it pulling her out into the storm. Only a backup emergency shield was holding what little was left of the life-support. If so much as a finger of her spacesuit touched it, she would be sucked out and ripped apart. She scrambled up. The whole place was shaking, whipped around by the vortex. She stumbled a few more feet. There was no way her vortex manipulator would be able to get an accurate lock on the teleport room with the movement. She would have to make her own way there and hope she still had enough time before the shield failed completely.

She started to run, dodging the swirling patches of blue in the walls and floor and the various objects being pulled into them. It wasn't at all easy. She was cold even through the thick skin of the spacesuit. She could feel the heat being pulled from her body and realized that the suit could only protect her for so long. She was running flat out and even that might not be enough.

The gravity was failing now. Orienting to the walls, the ceiling, the bars on the cells. It wouldn't give out completely, Stormcage was so massive that even if the artificial gravity completely failed normal gravity would orientate to the core of the prison. River stayed close to the cells in case this happened, ready to scramble up them and keep running.

The door to the teleport room was meters ahead now, but something was wrong. Through the tiny barred window shone a brilliant, blinding blue-white light.

"No." River whispered. She was too late. But, she thought desperately, maybe the day could still be saved. Maybe the shield had managed to contain the hole in the room. Maybe the sonic was still on the floor. With almost superhuman strength, River wrenched the door open. She braced herself against the frame and looked inside in horror. There was virtually no room left. River saw the storm in all its raw intensity. It pulled against her so hard that she could almost feel the wall between her and the blue maw threatening to collapse under the forces. There was no possible way the screwdriver could still exist, let alone be in the room.

River ducked several pieces of flying debris but the cold was slowing her down. She tried to shut the door again but realized that it had been torn off and fallen into the vortex. Objects were flying at her faster and faster.

River fumbled for the vortex manipulator. There was no way to save the screwdriver but she could still save herself. She punched in the TARDIS's coordinates without thinking, without looking at the food tray that careened madly past her head. She raised her hand to punch the button for go and let out a terrible scream. Her sleeve had been ripped by a shard of metal. The arm beneath it was instantly frozen solid.

Suddenly River felt very, very warm. A light almost brighter than that of the vortex seemed to radiate from her, burning the suit. She knew what was happening but she didn't want to acknowledge it. Not now, for anything's sake not _now_. She slammed the vortex manipulator against the wall, depressing the middle button and dematerialized.

"Not in front of the Doctor, he can't know. Not in front of the Doctor." She chanted as she rematerialized in the infirmary. River heaved a sigh of relief that the room appeared to be empty, terrified to discover that it looked like regeneration energy more than simply air. The infirmary glowed orange with her light. She wouldn't be able to hold it off much longer, it was taking every ounce of strength she possessed simply to keep from giving in and letting the energy heal her.

River found the nanogenes' black plastic blob on the bed where the Doctor had been. His clothing and blankets were still there but she pushed them away, pressing the button on the side and hoping she wasn't too late.

The nanogenes streamed out but didn't move to help her, just stayed in their floating orb as River's regeneration energy grew in strength. Confusion swept her. Why didn't they move? Why didn't they help her? But she knew why. They'd been programmed for the Doctor. Not for Time Lords in general, but for one specific Time Lord. _His_ stagnant, computerized DNA. The nanogenes couldn't help her. In the interest of keeping a secret that could save the Universe, she had unknowingly sacrificed herself. Or this self, anyway.

There was a way she could salvage this though, she had heard of Time Lords who could control their regenerations, who could choose who they wanted to be and what they wanted to look like. The Doctor had never done it, and she had never tried before, but she figured that if it kept her secret then it was worth it. There was nothing else she could do.

She focused her mind through the noise, heat and energy. She could feel the energy healing and changing her. Who was she? River Song. She would stay River Song. She focused on how her body felt, what it looked like, each strand of her hair. She thought of how it felt to run, how her muscles contracted and stretched, how panic felt as it flooded her. What it felt like to hug the Doctor, to save the day, to trust and to love. The exhilaration of those first few meetings before she figured out what was really happening. Her training, the muscle memory of a thousand exercises, how natural it felt to move in her own body.

Gradually she felt the cells of her body slide back into their places. She didn't know if it worked, but she felt herself cooling. The energy no longer forced her upright and she slumped to the floor, her eyes closed.

"River?" It was Rory's voice, cautious and confused. She opened her eyes. Rory had turned on the light but after the fire of her regeneration, it seemed dim and soft. Rory's face alternated between confusion and surprise. He opened and closed his mouth a few times but said nothing.

"How do I look?" She asked.

"Fine, normal. What just happened?" He asked in reply. To be honest he seemed a little afraid of her.

"I regenerated. I take it you watched?"

"Yes, um, was I not supposed to? Was it a private thing?" Rory backtracked, River smiled.

"You're okay. I hope I put on a good show." She laughed lightly.

"So you're a-." he swallowed and trailed off.

"Yes."

"And the Doctor?" River stiffened.

"You _can't_ tell him." Her face was suddenly serious. "There is a time when he finds out but it is not today, do you understand?" Rory nodded compliantly. "You can't tell Amy either, it has just as much to do with her." Rory looked confused again but said nothing.

River suddenly doubled over, her face twisted in pain.

"What's wrong?" Rory asked urgently. River pushed him away. She breathed out a stream of orange energy.

"It's alright." She gasped. "I'm still brimming with energy, I have to let some of it go or it starts to burn me up inside. It's completely normal after regeneration." She winced.

"Is there something I can do?" Rory asked awkwardly.

"No, it just takes time." River said. "Where's the Doctor?"

"Kitchen, eating everything we've got, I suppose. He woke up just after you left. I told him he probably shouldn't but the nanogenes worked, he seems fine."

"Good." River said, letting another stream of energy flow from her mouth. "Under normal circumstances recovery from a regeneration could take hours or days. But I don't have that kind of time." Rory raised an eyebrow in question. River continued. "You can't keep the fact that I'm still here forever." She pointed out. "And he can't know I regenerated; something he'll figure out immediately if we're in the same room. What I can do is let the TARDIS absorb the energy. She can't use it to power herself, but she can take it from me."

"Are you sure? Is that dangerous? I've read a couple of books in the TARDIS library about Time Lords and the way they change and they've never mentioned-"

"They wouldn't have. The Time Lords never studied the complex relationship between a TARDIS and her _pilots_, for lack of a better term. Once fully bonded a TARDIS would literally rip the fabric of space-time apart to save the lives, or at least the consciousnesses, of their Time Lord charge. They will do anything asked of them, not matter the difficulty." Rory stifled a laugh. "They'll do anything that_ needs_ to be done for the well being of the _occupants_, no matter the difficulty." River amended. "You'll find that out soon enough." She added cryptically.

"So what are you going to do?"

"Ask her to absorb my regeneration energy."

A/N: I think I should be wrapping this up soon. I know it's been winding everywhere and some of you are losing interest, but I've enjoyed your faithfulness up to this point. Thanks!

Reviews mean the world!


	8. Chapter 8

Yes, um, I watched that episode too. I know that River used all of her regeneration energy to heal the Doctor. I know that by definition the last chapter shouldn't have worked. However, for the purposes of this fic, um, since she regenerated into herself, um, it took less energy, um, as exemplified by Journey's End. Energy the TARDIS could have saved from the Doctor's past regenerations and given to her. So there. It works.

Ok, I know this chapter is crap, believe me. It's boring, bland, and the characterization sucks. My language arts teacher would kill me if she ever read it. I've tried to rewrite it but nothing has come out better. If I ever do rewrite it, you will all be the first to know. Thanks for the patience.

With Rory's help River made her way to the nearest 'raw' wall, one that fed into the TARDIS herself. She placed both of her hands on it and closed her eyes. She breathed evenly, at first slowly and then more and more heavily as though trying to control pain building from the light in her body. She swelled with energy again, the light and heat was building within her.

Her mouth opened and words came out, obscured by the sound of the energy. They were not words translated by the TARDIS's circuits and Rory guessed they were Gallifreyan. She talked, a one sided conversation with the ship. The words became pleading, but it didn't seem like this was because the TARDIS would not comply with her wishes but because she was having difficulty controlling the energy. Rory left the room.

Under his feet the ship hummed violently. There was no way the Doctor couldn't have felt it, even all the way in the kitchen. Inside the room River's energy was discharging much faster than it should have been, much faster than was safe.

All to keep a secret. An important secret, he was sure; but what would the Doctor think? There was a good chance that the Doctor would be overjoyed to know that River was a Time Lord. He'd been alone for so long, Rory could see it in his eyes whenever they encountered death. A burning need for contact with his own species.

There was also a good chance that the TARDIS was somehow blinding him to the fact that there was a second Time Lord aboard. At River's request? Probably. To preserve the timeline? Most likely. And if this was the case, would he be able to feel the discharge of energy? And why couldn't he tell Amy? As questions filled his head, Rory felt the energy decrease, discharge from the floor below him. He waited a few seconds, suddenly overcome with worry at what he would find if he entered the infirmary again.

Would River have died to keep the secret? She couldn't, he supposed. If the secret was about the future she couldn't risk dying to keep it. If she died there would be no secret to keep. Rory put his head in his hands; time travel was confusing. There seemed to be no middle ground.

Gingerly he pushed open the door to the infirmary. It was dark again, and the room looked as though it had recently caught on fire. The air was filled with smoke. Rory waved some of it away, coughing as he accidentally inhaled the acrid air. Even if River had managed to keep it from the Doctor that she was regenerating right under his nose, she wouldn't be able to explain the charred infirmary.

"River?" He asked hesitantly into the gloom. He couldn't see her. It was too dark and the smoke was too thick. He shuffled further in, careful to avoid charred equipment and furniture. "River? Are you alright?" There was no answer. Then he heard a shuffling sound coming from near the wall River had used to discharge her energy. Rory carefully felt his way towards the noise. "River? If you can hear me don't get up, just make some noise and I'll find you." There were a couple of seconds of silence. By the look of the room River couldn't be in all that great of shape.

"It's alright Rory, I'm fine." The shuffling grew louder, and the sound of things being knocked over rang out. "Still a little clumsy I guess, that'll work itself out soon. I'm still a bit new to the art of regeneration." There was a certain sadness in the words that Rory didn't quite understand. He supposed it had something to do with the trauma she had just endured and just the general ordeal of the day. It could mess anyone up. A couple more seconds went by and Rory found himself being pulled to the door of the room by River, who seemed to be perfectly alright. Rory stayed alert, however, for he had spent enough time with the Doctor to know people lied sometimes.

Rory closed the door behind them and waved away the last of the smoke that had filtered into the corridor. River pulled her hair back into a knot. For a while they stood without speaking.

"How are you going to keep that a secret?" Rory said, finally breaking the silence. "I mean, he doesn't use the infirmary every day but the way we've been going it isn't going to be long before he notices someone destroyed it."

"The TARDIS shouldn't take long to heal herself. She's been through far worse in her time." There was a disgruntled sounding hum from below their feet. Rory rubbed the back of his neck nervously. River continued. "My energy did some damage, but she has it contained for now. And they'll come a time when the Doctor will need it, I have no doubt." River looked back and forth down the hall leading back to the console room. "Speaking of our Doctor, where is he? He should have heard the racket we were making by now and come running." River stalked off down the hall towards the kitchen. Rory followed, somewhat bewildered at the current situation.

"He's probably still in the kitchen." Rory said lamely, wondering if River's question was meant to be rhetorical.

"Thanks, sweetie." River said, talking to what could only be the TARDIS.

A few minutes later they arrived at the TARDIS's kitchen. Sitting in the center, on top of the wide kitchen table was the Doctor. He was surrounded by what looked like every type of foodstuffs in the cosmic vicinity. Rory stared in amazement, at first at the sheer quantity of food he could not identify (And he thought looking in the fridge for a late night snack was difficult.), and then at the Doctor, who seemed perfectly content to sit about and shove it into his mouth with what looked like great pleasure. Like he hadn't noticed a thing wrong.

"Ah, River! Have you found my screwdriver yet?" He asked, pausing a moment in his ravenous gusto to fix her with a pleasant, questioning look. River's face fell.

"I'm sorry, sweetie." River said quietly, and it looked to Rory that there was nothing more she meant in the universe. "I went back to the room but it was gone."

"The screwdriver was gone?" The Doctor asked. He had frozen; the last word, whispered, hung in the air long after he finished the sentence.

"The room was gone, sweetie." River repeated gently. "The screwdriver was thrown into the void long before I got there. I'm sorry, whatever it meant to you, I…" She trailed off. The Doctor's face had contorted into one of bewilderment, then horror, then immeasurable sadness. River didn't know what to think. No screwdriver would mean that much to him. He could build another one; the _TARDIS_ could build another one for goodness sakes!

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak. His lips formed words, but it was as if they couldn't agree on what to say. When he did finally speak the words were forced, raw and hoarse.

"Tell me you're joking." He said simply. "Please, just say you're joking and give me the screwdriver." His eyes were pleading wordlessly with River. Tears were forming, actual tears. She had never seen him lose it like this before.

"I'm so sorry sweetie." River said, not fully understanding what she was apologizing for. "I was too late, the room was gone, there was nothing I could-." Then his eyes turned dark and a more familiar emotion crossed his face. Rage seemed to course though him, transforming him into the killer River had heard stories of in her childhood.

"You should have worked faster, then." He said. His voice was quiet, but that was worse than when he screamed. She had seen people run from that voice. Many of them had not gotten very far. "YOU SHOULD HAVE WORKED FASTER!" He cried; tears fell, he was losing what control he had maintained until this point. He climbed down off the table, looking almost as though he was preparing to attack River. He didn't, but Rory edged backwards out of the kitchen door and away from the fight. The Doctor seemed to be shaking, fighting against something that was tearing him apart inside. This wasn't about the screwdriver anymore.

"Doctor, what was so important? Let me help you, let me fix this! Doctor, please!" The Doctor faltered for a second, losing the anger, letting his face revert back…

"No. It's my fault. I failed this. I lost it. I gave it to you and I lost it. Don't you see?" He was whispering again, but now it was much more the sadness again than the anger.

"I don't understand, Doctor, explain it to me. What happened, what did you lose?" River asked.

"You. River. I lost you." He swallowed. For a second the world stopped and the Doctor seemed to realize what the information would mean. "Spoilers." He finished, looking directly into River's eyes before she could question him. His eyes were pleading again, but this time River couldn't tell why. She took a tentative step forward and put her arms around him. He resisted for a second, but then fell limply into her, shaking. They stayed like that for a while then, seconds or hours neither Time Lord knew, and neither cared.

Then without warning the Doctor tensed and forced himself up. "Cause the strange thing is, River, I would know, right? A hundred years or what in the future I would remember today, remember what _happened _today. And I would know that you didn't get the screwdriver back. So what would future me do? Cause future me knows how it works out. What would I do? Come on! Think! Think! This is me we're talking about and I'm _clever_!" He stopped; teeth bared the way they were when he was trying to figure something out. River looked at him, utterly perplexed at his sudden behavior.

"What is it? What did you think of?"

"River!" He cried, snapping his fingers in front of his face. "You said something else! What else did you say? The screwdriver and something else; at the singing towers what else did I give you?" He was inches away from her face now. The intensity in his voice had reached such a pitch that River was again almost afraid.

"Ah, the paper! The psychic paper!" River cried back to him, matching the intensity. She pulled a small, flat grey case from her pocket. "Here Doctor, this is what you gave me." He plucked the case out of her hands and examined it fervently.

"It's a little thick for a piece of paper don't you think?" He asked excitedly. River was lost again.

"I thought it was just an older model." River said.

"What? An older model of a piece of paper?" He asked, a sort of fond annoyance appeared in his voice.

"Is that a good thing that it's thick?" River asked.

"Good thing?" A huge smile broke across the Doctor's face. "River, it's a brilliant thing!" With that the Doctor pushed past her out the kitchen door and ran away down the hall.

"Why?" She called after him, utterly confused at the alien's actions.

"Spoilers!" He shouted back. "And I just sort of saved your life."


End file.
